That leaves little room for, ahem, movies. This used to drive me nuts–the not seeing films at a film festival. It has become part of the opening weekend bargain at Toronto, which is front loaded with junkets of major studio pictures.

Still much of today was spent watching movies, each more intereresting than not.

One of them was exceptional.

Joel and Ethan Coen’s adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s “No Country for Old Men.” Shot with grandeur and grit by Bros. Coen collaborator Roger Deakins, it is a poem of brutality and mourning. And Tommy Lee Jones, as a sheriff starting to feel the crimes are beyond his understanding, reminds all who care to know that Oscar races are underway. TLJ isn’t the lead exactly. That duty is shared by Javier Bardem as a killer whose lethal weapon is a canister with a hose and nozzle. Some of in the audience will recognize what this devise is. I didn’t and I’m not saying.

The viewed tally continues:
“Rendition” featuring Reese Witherspoon, Jake Gyllenhaal, Meryl Streep among others tells a tale of the abduction of the Witherspoon character’s husband, a green-card holding Egyptian man on suspicion of being a terrorist. Meryl Streep is coldly brutal as the CIA honcho who orders the “rendition.”

It was double duty on the Juliette Binoche front with Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s “The Flight of the Red Balloon,” and Israeli director Amos Gitai’s “Disengagement,” a drama that begins with a death in of a father in Franced but unfolds with the expulsion of settlers in Gaza. One of the great shots of the film fills the screen with chanting Israeli police pushing as gently, forcefully as they can, against chanting, resistent settlers. Its the sort of shot Gitai has delivered before and it often suggest a mural of motion.

Day 3:

A cross-country track team in maroon and gold paces its way through the streets of downtown and upscale Toronto. But they’re not wearing the colors of nearby University of Toronto. They’re sporting the colors of Michael Cera’s character in “Juno,” Jason Reitman and writer-wonder Diablo Cody’s comedy I wrote about in relation to the Telluride Film Festival.

Dapper in a grey suit and black shirt that complemented his salt-pepper hair, George Clooney emerged from a room at the Four Seasons and barked playfully. “He was drunk!” A hallway crowded with television press and Warner Bros. folk laughed. He has that effect. His wise-acre humor carried through during the “Michael Clayton” press conference. Writer-director Tony Gilroy sat with Clooney and Tilda Swinton on a low dias in front of the packed ballroom to discuss the political thriller.

On the corner of Avenue Road and Bloor, Laura Kim of Warner Indepentent Pictures scrolled through the announcement of winners from the Venice Film Festival. Ang Lee’s “Lust, Caution” took best picture. Brian De Palma won for best director for his Iraq film “Redacted” which will screen here. Brad Pitt won for his portrayal of Jesse James and Cate Blanchett was named best actress for her turn as one of the Bob Dylan personas in “I’m Not There,” which, yup, will be here midweek.

When I rean into Kim, I was headed to a 20 minute interview with Emile Hirsch, who picked up (or perhaps this is his own tick) the mildly laconic habits of his director: Sean Penn.

Dinner with the filmmakers and talent of a number of Sony Pictures Classics movies. This is looking like an exceptional year for the company. Last year SPC’s gem “The Lives of Others” won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Picture. Indeed the mid-indie distributor has nine films at Toronto (“Persepolis” “The Band’s Visit” “Counterfeiters” “My Kid Could Paint That” and “The Jane Austen Book Club” among them), some of which are sure to make it to the Starz Denver Film Festival come November. Jimmy Smits, who hits philandering and touchingly contrite notes in “Jane Austen Book Club” was game and gentlemanly at supper, especially since his must be busy and tuckered out what with the CBS series “Cane” about to run.

Day 4:
First thing this morning, Blanchett was delivering a different biographical mood in “Elizabeth: The Golden Age.” Later in the afternoon, Geoffrey Rush would sing the praises of Blanchett’s Queen to his Sir Francis Walsingham. The Aussie pro also provided a lead paragraph to my Viggo Mortensen interview when he launched into a loving assessment of Mortensen’s turn as a Russian mobster in David Cronenberg’s exquisite “Eastern Promises.” It’ll run in the paper Sunday.

Day 5:
Monday Night Football plays in the background, reminding me that I missed one of the most exciting Bronco finales in a long while. Let it go. Let it go. There were good movies today: The sweet surprise was a Lebanese film by director and ensemble member Nadine Labaki called “Caramel” about a group of friends in a Beirut beauty salon. The final movie in a day of five was “Atonement,” starring Keira Knightley and Jame McAvoy in a grand adaptation of Ian McEwan’s novel. Both leads are slated to chat with the Post tomorrow.

Looking up a name on Internet Movie Database, I saw that Jane Wyman died. She was 90. Wednesday, director Todd Haynes will be in town. He may have a thing or two to say about the actress beyond the political button that stated “Jane Wyman Was Right,” referring to the Oscar winner divorcing first husband Ronald Reagan. After all, Haynes’ “Far From Heaven” was an homage to Douglas Sirk’s “All That Heaven Allows,” starring Wyman as a widow and Rock Hudson as the younger man she falls for.

Lisa Kennedy has been The Denver Post film critic for quite a spell. The job returned her to the town she grew up in after 20 years of living elsewhere: mostly in New York City. During the time she's been back, she was voted into the National Society of Film Critics, a first for a Colorado reviewer. When she began Diary of a Mad Moviegoer, she wasn't just cribbing from Tyler Perry. In fact, she seldom goes all Madea on movies, thinking the gig is more like a conversation than a competition about who's right about which flick.